spritzer Posted January 25, 2019 Report Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) When I heard these were being released I just had to get a set to see if they matched the supreme crap that the original was. Now after some delays I picked the set up from the postoffice. This first post will focus mostly on the amp, the headphones will be taken apart at a later date. I have been listening to them for a few hours now so some quick impressions are in order though. Same build quality as we've come to expect from Hifiman...i.e. absolute fucking trash. First off, the phones stink badly. These are 1500$ on their own so much like the Shangri-La JR... everything is nasty synthetic crap. Same cable as the Shangri-La and Jr. use which is completely unsuitable for this role. Comfort is ok, I have the headband at max extension and the headpad is a bit uncomfortable due to that. It's odd though as they are feather light. As for the sound, well first thing you'll notice is the utter lack of usable deep bass output. I think there might be a port hiding somewhere in there as they don't squeal as they should. Tonally they are ok though, a bit thin, non offensive and the soundstage is decent. Similar league as the L300 but the bass issue has to be fixed for them to be directly compared. This is off my usual setup (Denafrips Terminator, Carbon CC) and not the included amp. Nothing from China is turned on here without being taken apart... Now for the amp, this is probably the worst chassis design ever and pretty much an utter pain to get into. Now to do so, you have to take off the front and remove the two screws which hold this PCB: Then remove the nut which holds the attenuator (more on that later) and finally remove the screws for the back panel: Undo everything there as well and the power switch and input wires are on connectors. I just cut the IEC off though as the input wires for the switch are nowhere close to safe and so is the earthing in this thing. Just look at how thin that stuff is. Also, why the hell didn't they use push on connectors for the IEC? It would make it much simpler... Once all that stuff is off you can pull out the pcb's and disconnect the transformer: Doing that I saw this gem... the bare wires from the transformer are ziptied to the input lead. Yup...no need to separate that... You can also see the earthing tag there. At this point I'm not sure where the earth is actually connected to the chassis. Two wires connect with a screw to the top PCB at the back, one from the IEC and one from the transformer shield. Granted this goes through some standoffs and to the chassis eventually but that is now how earthing should be done. On the other side of the board there is an earth wire that goes directly to the pot, which is mounted on the chassis but that is also not proper earthing. This is all very China "we don't give a fuck about safety". Now here is the top board as it comes out of the chassis: Clearly the PSU and easy to read the output voltages on the bottom. Fixed regulators for the low voltage stuff (proper JRC parts so that's nice) and simple HV supply. Now anybody familiar with old Stax amps will notice what the amp actually is at this point. Funny to see the mix of crap caps, the input caps for the LV supplies are Lelon (crap) but the output are Nichicon. Same goes for the HV side, input are "JH" (never heard of it) but the output are Nippon Chemicon. Just odd but I'll go more in depth on the PSU when I rip out all the crap caps. Here is the back of the PSU: Now the amplifier, with just three voltage rails, +/-15V and +660V there is just one possible topology here. Resistor current source feeding a single output device. So here we go: Yup this is utter shit and a clone of what Stax did with the SRA-10/12S back in 1972. It gets worse though... Say hello to the mosfet output devices and well...their typical output capacitance of 65pf. That's half the capacitance of the phones and you have two of these per driver. Yup...pure quality here. The 2SC4686A we used in the KGSSHV have a Cob of about 2.4pf and the goal here is to keep it as low as possible otherwise it will mess up the sound signature of the amp. Think Cavalli Liquid Lightning here... Here is the input section and the we need to discuss that a bit. So this amp has a balanced input but it isn't balanced. The volume control is one of those cheapo 21 step steppers you can find on ebay for 15$ and just two decks. There are also just two wires coming from the input board per channel, Rin and ground... Funny too is that the instructions manual specifically states that the volume control is a 21 step relay based attenuator. Yeah...that is a fucking lie. So the amp is resistor loaded mosfet with output capacitance matching the load and isn't actually balanced. The output caps are at least larger what what Stax used back in the day so that is something... Now we need to discuss this board: This is on front panel and for some reason the outputs have relays on them and 1K output resistors. While better than nothing, something in the 5K range would be a better choice. Now comes the point some were waiting for, can this thing be used with Stax sets? At this point I'd say no, there are just 2M ballast resistors on that board for each output (no idea why they used two) so this amp can damage Stax. Ohhh and one funny thing before I go do something productive...they hand matched the output load resistors... Finally just a dump of the extra pics I took if anybody wants to look through them. Edited January 25, 2019 by spritzer 8 1 1 2 1
spritzer Posted January 25, 2019 Author Report Posted January 25, 2019 Half the fun is to take this stuff apart but the sheer lack of quality here is astounding. So the large blue caps in the PSU, I wanted to check out the bottom to see if they had any further markings and cut off the zip ties and bent it upwards. Well...one of the legs just popped off which shows the soldering quality here. It was barely hanging on as they clearly trimmed the legs before soldering and nobody spent enough time on each joint for the solder to flow through to the other side of the holes. So I guess as full rebuild of the PSU is on order...on the brand new 1100$ amp. 1 2
chinsettawong Posted January 25, 2019 Report Posted January 25, 2019 Really like to see the inside of the headphones.
spritzer Posted January 25, 2019 Author Report Posted January 25, 2019 That will come. I did take off the earpads and well... the protector on the inside of the cups is "interesting"... 2
Lord_Rexter Posted January 25, 2019 Report Posted January 25, 2019 Thanks Birgir, can't wait to hear about what you think of Jade II headphones when you take them apart ? will stay tuned.
spritzer Posted January 26, 2019 Author Report Posted January 26, 2019 6 hours ago, eggil said: How do the phones sound? Thin and a bit lifeless with reasonably good soundstage. Not bad but not great either and it really depends on what you are listening to. On some music it is unbearably thin while on some it works just fine. The cable is the biggest issue one these though, it's too short and just unsafe garbage. I'm also detecting some noise in the left earpiece so squealing might be an issue with these. Some notes on the amp, the XLR input is completely fake and the - leg of the input just goes through a 630 ohm resistor to ground. Pure class there... The soldering on this thing is world class in the wrong direction, a lot of parts are loose when I try to move them so I wonder if this thing passed through quality control at all. I never turned it on so I can't know if it ever worked. I will go through it and make something usable from this mess though... I was looking up the caps I had never come across and yup, they will be out of there. I'm also going to redo the input section completely as the stepped attenuator feels like garbage. Some 10M90's instead of the load resistors too... we'll see what I can fit in there. 2
Whitigir Posted January 26, 2019 Report Posted January 26, 2019 I wonder when will Diamond come out as we are only upto Jade at the moment 1
spritzer Posted January 27, 2019 Author Report Posted January 27, 2019 Well I was finally fed up with the shit cable so out came the tools... One funny thing, I just read through the manual and it specifically states that these have a gold plated plug...which they don't have in reality. Why state something which ever owner will easily spot as a lie? Similar earpads to the Shangri-La Jr. The protective mesh is just a black PCB and the other side even has some production markings on the silkscreen. First reveal and yup...these are 100% pcb. Just stacked up in the baffle and no glue at all. Now comes a pile of pics: It's an interesting design but from a build quality point of view, this is miles away from what Stax are doing. One other thing, the headphones are wired up backwards, + output is wired to the back stator. The back grills just drop out and are not fastened in any way. Time for a new cable. The wide PC-OCC Stax cable is a tight fit but it does work. All done. 8 1 1
purk Posted January 28, 2019 Report Posted January 28, 2019 The L700 + 353X gotta be a much better purchase. 1 1
spritzer Posted January 28, 2019 Author Report Posted January 28, 2019 Yeah, I'd go for that as well, hell even the Massdrop ESP950 at 500$ is better than this shit. Also bonus bit, there were holes in one of the dust covers. Yeah...pure quality. I just quickly patched them up with some tape until I have time to replace it. Also there was a small port on the cable entry which I plugged. There are also holes next to the swivel axis so I plugged those too. A small improvement to the bass or it was due to the cable... not sure. Need to do more testing 3
JimL Posted January 28, 2019 Report Posted January 28, 2019 Sounds like it was built just barely good enough to get it past the warranty period without failing. 1
spritzer Posted January 28, 2019 Author Report Posted January 28, 2019 Yeah, it all looks like that. Well except the cable, if that lasts a year I'd be amazed.
purk Posted January 29, 2019 Report Posted January 29, 2019 23 hours ago, JimL said: Sounds like it was built just barely good enough to get it past the warranty period without failing. Or whenever they decide to release Jade II SE 2 1
wink Posted January 30, 2019 Report Posted January 30, 2019 How about a Jade III Spritzer Edition. That would be the gold standard.......
SeaWolf Posted January 30, 2019 Report Posted January 30, 2019 Is that the version where you pass on the hifiman product and opt for the 007?! 1
spritzer Posted January 30, 2019 Author Report Posted January 30, 2019 Pretty much... Seriously though, for 500$ this would be a solid set of headphones but for 1500$? Not really... Some points I never touched on, the system comes in two large boxes and the headphones just come in that shipping box. Not even placed in a bag or anything (no desiccant bag either) the issues of shipping will be further amplified.
spritzer Posted February 1, 2019 Author Report Posted February 1, 2019 I just put together the amp and Fang should really fire everybody in the "Hifiman Boston design team" for coming up with this shit. So there is really no good way of assembling this as you can't just put on the front or the back first and connect the internal wires. Nope, they have to hang off at the same time while trying to connect the fiddly connectors. Fucking hell... It will be fun for them to service this shit...
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